


Hidden (In Plain Sight)

by meils121, Spacefoxen



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Gen, Protective Eliot Spencer, Safehouses, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 00:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16377947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meils121/pseuds/meils121, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacefoxen/pseuds/Spacefoxen
Summary: Eliot needs to lie low for a few months, and where better to hide than the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma.  But he keeps running into a couple who just seem - off.  Are they there to take him out?  Or is there another reasons two thieves are hiding here as well?Or: The story of what happens when Eliot meets two thieves while in hiding from the mob.  There's some house renovation, small-town gossip, a few dead plants, and a Faberge Egg involved too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to spacefoxen for creating this beautiful artwork and for beta-ing my work as well! It was so much fun getting to work with you, and I absolutely love how the art turned out. The art is in the second chapter to avoid spoilers (or, if you're like me, just skip ahead!). You can also find the art here: https://foxprints.tumblr.com/post/179319918075/my-art-contribution-for-the-leveragebigbang-i
> 
> Thank you to the mods of the Leverage Big Bang for a wonderful experience and keeping things running smoothly! You've helped keep this wonderful fandom alive and well, and it's so awesome to see so many people loving this show and characters even this long after it ended. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy the fic and art!

            There are certain precautions that you take when you have a job like Eliot’s.  He has eleven different identities, each carefully crafted and designed for a specific purpose.  He has bank accounts and safety deposit boxes that each hold whatever he needs to disappear.  His current base - an apartment in Brooklyn - is armed to the teeth and secured with the type of security system more often found in vaults than in brownstones.  He has six different safe houses around the world - the penthouse in Dubai and the flat above the bar in Dublin, the condo in Rio and the house in Vancouver, the apartment in Paris and the house in the middle of absolutely-fucking-nowhere, Oklahoma. 

            It’s that last safehouse that he’s headed to now.  The job went south, like he thought it might.  That tends to happen when you do something to piss off the Escamilla Cartel.  He’s either got to go into hiding or accept that he’s going to end up in an alley with a bullet in his head, and really, Eliot would like to stay alive.  He doesn’t trust that his former allies won’t guess his aliases, so he’s falling back on the standby that no one expects: his real name. 

            The safehouse is tucked away on a quiet street in a town where the police spend more time chasing runaway sheep than worrying about actual crime.  It’s the perfect place to lie low for a few months.  Not that Eliot particularly wants to spend more than ten minutes in a place like this, but he really doesn’t have many other options.  It just reminds him too much of a place he once called home, a place he left behind over a decade ago and hasn’t thought of much since.  He’s not sure if this - the town that could be home, with a different name, a different set of characters - is better or worse than if he actually went home.  

            It’s typical smaller-than-small-town America, the sort of place that has just enough stoplights to cause a backup on Saturday mornings when everyone runs errands.  Figures that has to be the day Eliot moves in.  He bought a beat-up old pickup truck and it’s got all he needs to survive in the back - a duffle bag full of clothes, a box of tools, a few pots and pans and a set of knives, and his case of weapons that are of the sort that you don’t know about unless you’ve spent too much time around arms dealers.

            The house itself was sold as a fixer upper, the type that even HGTV wouldn’t touch.  That’s okay.  Eliot got it cheap and paid cash.  The house is small, not quite spread out enough to be considered a ranch.  It’s got heat, running water, and electricity.  Eliot figures he’ll work on the rest in all his free time.  He’s going to need something to do while he’s here.  

            It takes less than an hour for the first set of neighbors to wander over, a husband and wife bearing a plate of cookies.  Mark asks if Eliot needs help moving in any more boxes and Jane asks if he’s here all alone, and Eliot tells them that he’s didn’t bring much with him and that yes, it’s just him in this old house.  

            “I’m a vet,”  Eliot explains when he sees the slight cloud of concern on their faces.  “It’s hard, being back in the States and not in the Army.  I needed to clear my head.”  It’s not a total lie. 

            The concern gives way.  Mark shakes Eliot’s hand and thanks him for his service.  Jane tells him not to be a stranger.  Eliot watches them leave and wonders what it’s like to be a normal person.  He knew, once upon a time, but that Eliot was young and dumb and too far gone to ever be recovered. 

            Eliot doesn’t like it, the nosiness of the neighbors.  He’s used to living in neighborhoods where you kept your head down and your mouth shut if you knew what was good for you.  But here, people expect smiles when he passes by them on the sidewalk.  It’s something he forgot about small towns, and it’s going to take some getting used to.  It’s always served him better to be the scary, silent type.  But that’s not going to make him fit in here, not in the slightest, so he does what he does best and adapts.

            And it turns out that adapting isn’t as hard as Eliot thought it would be.  Maybe, even after all those years in one city or another, there’s a part of him that never really let go of that small-town life.  Maybe he just needed a break from the sort of life that never really stops.  Either way, he falls pretty quickly into a routine.  It’s weird, slipping into patterns that he has spent a lifetime avoiding.  Anywhere else, in any other life but the one he’s living right now, a routine would spell certain death.  Here, it’s the only way to fit in and stay hidden. 

            Eliot spends his days working on the house.  He starts with the kitchen, figuring he needs a place to cook.  The hardware store in town, owned by the fourth generation of the Carter family, has most of what he needs.  About once a week, though, Eliot has to make the drive three towns over to the big box hardware store to pick up specialized pieces that Carter’s Hardware doesn’t carry.  

            It doesn’t take long to discover that the hardwood floors are salvageable but the drywall needs to be replaced.  Eliot ends up making his own butcher block countertops, spending a self-admitted ridiculous amount of time choosing exactly the right wood.  Occasionally a neighbor will stop in, knocking on the screen door before just letting themselves in and admiring Eliot’s work.  Soon he’s got more handyman job offers than he knows what to do with, but somehow he doesn’t mind helping fix a few plumbing issues or repairing a porch step.  It helps solidify his cover and makes people less suspicious.  A win-win, he thinks, except for the fact he still hasn’t gotten around to fixing the water pressure in his own shower and his hair is starting to show it.

            Eliot even starts meeting people.  It’s hard not to, in a town like this.  Mark invites him to watch the games at the local bar with a bunch of other guys, and it’s nice to have - not friends, not ever, but people to hang out with.  Makes the time go by a little faster, Eliot thinks. 

            He’s been here about a month when he first runs into the couple at the hardware store.  They’re standing in the back of the store in front of a display of saws, arguing over which one is the one they need.

            “This one,”  Eliot finally says, when it becomes more than obvious that they won’t reach a decision anytime soon.  The couple turns to look at him.  “You want this one.”  
            The woman looks suspicious, but the man tips his head.  “Thanks, man.  I do computers, not - this.”  He waves a hand around the store.

“No problem,”  Eliot says, because that’s who he is here.  He’s a helpful guy just trying to put his life back together.  He does things like mow elderly Mrs. George’s lawn and - apparently - helps people figure out what damn saw they need for a project.

            The woman gives him a funny look as the couple heads towards the register, and Eliot feels a little pang of worry in his chest.  Something’s not right.  Maybe a less trained person would push it away, but Eliot knows better.  So he tails the couple when they leave the store.  They end up at a house two blocks off of Main Street, a big old house that speaks to the town’s rich history.  It’s painted a rather garish green.  There’s a motorcycle parked in the driveway.  The garden seems mostly dead, and really, Eliot’s not all that surprised.  The couple didn’t seem all that handy. 

            He stays long enough to watch the couple head inside.  He doesn’t miss the fingerprint security system, and something is definitely off.  There’s no reason to have a system like that out here, in a town where most people leave their doors unlocked day and night.  Eliot’s got a system like that, but that’s because he does have something to hide. 

            There’s something weird about this couple, and Eliot doesn’t like it.  He drives - not home, because this place isn’t home, because he doesn’t have a home - back to his house, mulling things over.  He spends the rest of the afternoon pouring over his security system, looking for any weak spots and making sure everything is working properly.  But his security system is good and while he decides to keep an eye out for the couple, he’s fairly certain they don’t pose too big a risk.  He’s just adjusting to life in a small town again.  It’s a lot different from living in a city, after all. 

            It’s another week and a half before he sees the couple again, and he’s almost relaxed.  Almost.  He finishes sanding the cabinets in the kitchen and starts thinking about what kind of hardware he wants to put on them once they’re refinished.  His head is already swirling with ideas for the dining room.  He’s thinking pale green walls, or maybe a rich cream that will contrast nicely with the original wood trim.  

            But being relaxed isn’t a good thing, so he keeps his guard up, just a little.  Not enough, though, because he’s heading home from the small general store one afternoon when he rounds the corner onto Main Street and someone practically crashes into him.  Eliot side steps at the last moment, throwing out an arm so the other person doesn’t fall.  It’s not until he gets his bearings that he realizes it’s the man from the hardware store.

            “Thanks,”  the guy says.  He gives Eliot a funny look, like he’s trying to place him, and then grins.  “Oh, hey!  You’re the guy from the hardware store.  The saw worked like magic.  Didn’t even nick myself.”

            There was a reason Eliot had recommended that particular saw - he knows a newbie when he sees one.  But he’s not about to say that, so he just offers a smile back.  “Good to hear,”  he says. 

            “Yeah,”  the guys says.  “Uh, you don’t happen to know anything about plumbing, do you?”

            Eliot frowns.  “Do you always ask people you see on the street to be your handyman?”

            The guy holds up a bag from one of the local restaurants - one Eliot happens to be quite fond of.  “I have takeout?”  he offers.

            Eliot should say no.  He should tell the guy to ask Jacob over at the hardware store for a recommendation.  He should walk away from this huge unknown.  But - he doesn’t. 

            “You don’t even know my name,”  Eliot points out, one last effort to walk away from this whole thing.

            The guy looks sideways, and Eliot suddenly gets the sense that something is very, very wrong.  He’s about to bolt, appearances be damned, when the guy says, “I might have asked around town about you.  You’re the hot gossip, you know.  New guy in town and all that.  But, uh, I should probably introduce myself.  Hardison.”  He sticks his free hand out. 

            Eliot hesitates for a brief moment before shaking the outstretched hand.  “Eliot,”  he says.  “Which you apparently already knew.” 

            Hardison offers him a shrug.  “I’m nosy.  What can I say?”  he says.  “So, can you help?”

            It’s his last out, and maybe Eliot will live (or not) to regret it, but he doesn’t take it.  “Yeah,”  he says instead and wonders what the hell has gotten into him.  Except - he knows.  He wants to scope out this couple’s house, wants to get a better picture of who they are and just how big a threat they pose to him.

            “Great.”  Hardison looks relieved.  “I don’t live far.”

            Eliot doesn’t say that he’s already been there.  Instead, he follows Hardison back to his house.  The garden, somehow, is even more dead than it was before.  Eliot can practically hear the plants gasping for water. 

            “No green thumb, huh?”  Eliot asks, because that’s the sort of small talk that people make around here.  

            They’re walking up the steps of the front porch.  Hardison throws a look at the garden over his shoulder and shrugs.  “Computers, man.  I don’t deal much with living things.”

            Eliot files that piece of information away to think about later.  He follows Hardison into the house.  It’s cool and dark inside, a welcome break from the early summer heat.  There’s a gorgeous stairway to the right, the hand-carved bannister a work of art.  There’s also a climbing rig hanging in the middle of the two story foyer.  Alarm bells start ringing in Eliot’s head.  That’s not something normal people have in their houses.  There’s something else going on.  But Hardison just waves at the rig.

            “Parker’s - well, she’s Parker,”  he says, like that’s an explanation.  He must catch the look on Eliot face.  “Oh, Parker’s my partner.  She’s around here somewhere.”

            Eliot just barely senses movement out of the corner of his eye.  He tenses, ready to fight, but instead the woman from the hardware store steps out of the darkness and into the foyer.  She’s shorter than Hardison, and a less-trained person than Eliot would say she wasn’t as muscular, but Eliot knows raw strength when he sees it.  She’s infinitely more dangerous than her partner.  She carries herself like a cat, slipping into place without making a sound. 

            “Eliot’s going to take a look at the sink,”  Hardison says to her.  “This is Parker,”  he adds to Eliot.

            Eliot sticks his hand out.  Parker looks at it for a moment, considering, before shaking it and dropping it quickly.  “Hey,”  she says.  “Good.  It keeps spurting water everywhere and Hardison thought I was pranking him but I wasn’t.”  She frowns at her partner, looking mildly insulted.  “You’d know if I was pranking you.”

            Hardison just rolls his eyes.  “Through here,”  he says, leading the way down the hallway through what could be called a dining room - although it’s mostly full of what appears to be old computer parts - and into the kitchen.  Sure enough, Hardison just has to turn the handle of the kitchen sink before it starts spurting water out in every direction. 

            “Just needs to be tightened,”  Eliot says.  “You have a wrench?”

            Hardison frowns, but Parker nods.  She disappears and reappears with a wrench before Eliot can ask how she moves so quietly.  

            It only takes a few minutes to fix the sink, and by that time Hardison has the takeout - tacos - spread out on the table.  He offers a plate to Eliot and then beckons him out to the backyard.

            “You really need to water your plants,”  Eliot says, taking in with some dismay the state of the backyard.  It’s decent sized and could be nice, if anything besides the huge oak tree was still alive.  

            “That’s what rain’s for,”  Parker says.  “I’m no good with plants.”

            Eliot opens his mouth to argue, but then he sees the mulish frown on Parker’s face and decides he doesn’t know her well enough to push any buttons.  Or to even know if there are buttons to push.

            Instead, he settles for an agreeable sounding hum and tries to find a different topic to pursue.  “So, computers?”  he asks Hardison.  “What exactly do you do?”

            Hardison waves a hand, somewhat like he’s trying to be mysterious but mostly just looking like he’s not sure.  “Security,”  he says.  And Eliot’s heard that line before.  Hell, he’s said that line before, if in different circumstances.  

            He should call Hardison out on it.  But - he doesn’t.  He just nods, like he’s a clueless fucking hick who can’t tell a mouse from a keyboard, and turns to Parker.  “How about you?”

            “I’m a thief.”

            And really, Eliot can be forgiven for choking on his taco.  

            “Very funny,”  Hardison says in a voice that’s a bit too high-pitched to be believed.  “Now tell him what you actually do.”

            Parker frowns at him.  “I work in insurance,”  she says, almost sounding rehearsed.  

            Eliot manages to nod like he believes her - at least, he hopes.  In reality, he’s about ready to bolt, except for the fact he needs to act normal.  Not that he knows what normal looks like in this situation. 

            Hardison quickly steers the conversation away from Parker’s - announcement.  “How about you?”  he asks. 

            Eliot shrugs.  “Handyman, I guess,”  he says. 

            “You guess?”  Parker turns her piercing gaze onto Eliot, and he feels a bit like she’s able to see right through him.  Fuck. 

            He repeats the line he’s been using, playing that he’s a vet who just needs some time to piece his life back together and adjust to living in the states.  Parker’s gaze softens slightly, but it’s still questioning enough to make Eliot worried.  Hell, this whole conversation, encounter, all of it, is making him worried.  Something is very - not wrong, not yet, but definitely not right, either. 

            But he doesn’t sense that he’s in immediate danger, either, and that particular radar is pretty damn perfect.  At least, that’s the reason he tells himself for why he stays put for another hour, slowly going from being on high alert to just trading stories and giving Hardison a few pointers to at least keep his grass alive.  

            Hardison walks him to the front door when Eliot says he has to go - he does have cabinet hardware to install, after all.  Parker vanishes back into the depths of the house, and Eliot gets an eerie feeling that she’s still watching him somehow. 

            “Thanks,”  Hardison says, one hand jammed in his pocket.  “Appreciate the help.”

            “Anytime,”  Eliot says, and means it.  

            Later that night, after the hardware is installed and the kitchen is looking halfway-decent, Eliot ponders what to do.  He knows Parker was telling the truth about being a thief.  He can sense it in the way she moves and carries herself.  And Hardison had been purposely vague about his own career, enough so that Eliot thinks that if the man isn’t a thief himself, he certainly knows that his partner is.  

            But why here?  Eliot can’t think of a single reason they’d be living here.  The town is solidly middle-class, hardworking folks who spend extra money on new dishwashers or maybe a fishing boat, but definitely not on expensive jewelry or art like people elsewhere.  There’s no one here with a big enough target on their back to have it make sense why a thief - potentially two - would be camped out here, and that freaks Eliot out. 

            Normally - if he wasn’t in hiding, if he wasn’t afraid for his life if he so much as ventured near any of his old colleagues - all he’d have to do is make a phone call and he’d have all the information he needed on Hardison and Parker.  But that’s not possible, so he does the next best thing. 

            Mark and Jane live across the street from Eliot in a neat little bungalow with a brightly painted front door and pots of flowers everywhere.  Mark’s car isn’t parked out front, but Jane’s is, and that’s who Eliot needs to speak to anyway.

            “Good to see you.”  Jane ushers Eliot inside before he can so much as say hello and has a glass of lemonade poured and set in front of him in no time at all.  “How are you holding up in this heat?” 

            Jane’s the sort of woman who knows everyone else in town and isn’t afraid to share that knowledge - which is exactly what Eliot needs right now.  He makes polite small talk for a few minutes before asking Jane the question that’s really on his mind.

            “So I ran into this couple and ended up fixing their sink,”  he says.  “Hardison and Parker.  Do you know them?”

            Jane sets her glass of lemonade down.  “You’ve been in their house?”  she asks.  “Nobody’s been in their house.  Not even Margaret,”  she adds, like that’s supposed to mean something to Eliot.  

            “We had tacos,”  Eliot says.  He knows how these sorts of conversations work - he’s heard them enough growing up and, as he’s long since discovered, the language of spies isn’t all that different from the way small town gossip gets shared.  He has to offer a piece of information of his own to get what he wants. 

            Jane’s eyes light up.  “Tacos?”  she asks.  “Interesting.”

            “How long have they lived here?”

            “Oh, they only moved in two or three months before you did,”  Jane says.  “And they’ve mostly kept to themselves since then.  Well, Parker has.  Hardison is friendly enough.  Just - mysterious.”

            In a city - any city - that sort of behavior would have fit right in.  That’s why Eliot mostly stays in cities.  It’s safer there for criminals, because people just want to live their own lives and stay out of whatever anyone else is doing.  Not in small towns.  He wonders if Parker and Hardison know this, if they just haven’t adjusted to the way small towns work. 

            Jane doesn’t have much more information about Parker and Hardison, although the look on her face suggests that she just might be making a few calls tonight to see if she can dig up anything else.  Eliot says goodnight and trudges back across the street, his mind whirling with too many possibilities and scenarios.

            He’s still thinking the next morning when he gets to work on the last pieces of the kitchen renovation.  There are two scenarios, neither of which seem particularly likely and yet also seem totally possible.  The first is that Parker and Hardison are thieves - perhaps scouting a new target or maybe on the run like Eliot.  There are signs - Parker announcing she’s a thief being the biggest red flag, one that Eliot really can’t ignore or chalk up to a joke, not with the look on Parker’s face when she said it.  But Eliot can’t believe he managed to find a safehouse in the only town in Oklahoma where two thieves were already camped out.  The other scenario is that somehow Eliot did misread Parker, that she was joking and that the pair are just a regular couple, perhaps a little odd, but nothing more than that.

            Or, Eliot thinks for a brief moment, they’re here to get rid of him.  But he dismisses that thought.  Jane said they were there before him, after all, and besides, he’s been in their house and nothing bad happened.  No, that can’t be it.

            That still doesn’t leave Eliot with a whole lot to go on.  He decides to do what any halfway decent guy in his position, with his background, would do.  He’s going to stake them out.

            That night - kitchen finished - Eliot heads the few blocks over to Parker and Hardison’s house.  Even in the summer darkness, the green house is glaringly obvious from the street.  He settles into the overgrown empty lot across the street and waits.  

            He’s been there an hour now, waiting.  The lights in the house have gone dark, but he’s hesitant to get too close because of the glimpses of the security system he’s seen.  In the end, though, it doesn’t matter, because he senses movement next to him and is moving to neutralize the threat before he even figures out who is there.

            But he swings at empty air.  Confused, he looks around, then up.  Parker is sitting in the tree above him, her feet swinging in the air.  She’s dressed all in black, her blonde hair tucked into a ski cap.  If there was any doubt in Eliot’s mind before if she was a thief, it’s gone now.

            “Are you here to kill us?”  Parker asks. 

            Eliot frowns.  “No,”  he says,  “I thought you were tracking me.”

            It’s Parker’s turn to frown.  “You’re the one hiding in the dark across from our house,”  she points out, and really, that’s a fair point. 

            “You’re a thief.”

            “I know.”  Parker drops to the ground, landing soundlessly.  “I told you that.”

            “Is Hardison?”

            Parker considers this for a moment.  “He’s not not a thief,”  she answers.  “He’s a hacker, mostly.”

            That, at least, makes sense.  “Okay,”  Eliot says.  “So why are you here?”

            “Why are you here?”  Parker counters.  Then, before Eliot can answer, she looks around and gestures for him to follow her.  “It’d be better to talk inside.”

            Maybe Eliot shouldn’t follow her.  Maybe he should walk away and leave this town and find somewhere else to hide out.  But he doesn’t, and maybe he’ll regret that and maybe he won’t.

            Parker leads him to a room he hadn’t seen in his last visit, a cozy space with a giant TV taking up one wall and leather furniture and more throw pillows than anyone really would ever need.  Parker kicks her shoes off and settles on one of the couches, waiting for Eliot to do the same. 

            “So why are you here?”  Parker repeats. 

            “I wanted to know more about you,”  Eliot answers.  “I thought - I thought you were either pulling a job here or worked for the guys who are after me.”

            “You could have asked,”  Parker says, like that’s a perfectly normal thing to ask someone you barely know.  

            “Not really.”

            Parker shrugs.  “We don’t work for anyone,”  she says.  “And we’re not pulling a job.  There’s nothing here to steal.  I’ve looked.  The only place is the bank, and their security system is boring.  I’ve already broken in three times and no one has noticed.  I don’t even take anything!”

            She sounds insulted.  The night is getting weirder by the minute.  “So why are you two here?”  Eliot asks.

            “Apparently for the same reason you are,”  Parker answers.  “Things got a little heated back in LA and we needed a place to lie low for a while.  I threw a dart and this is where it landed.”

            Eliot doesn’t believe in coincidences.  He doesn’t.  But he also doesn’t have a single reasonable, logical explanation for how two sets of criminals ended up choosing the same little town to hide in.  It doesn’t make sense.

            Parker must sense his doubt.  “You can ask Hardison,”  she says.

            “It’s not that,”  Eliot says.  “What happened in LA?”

            Now Parker’s easy demeanor shifts.  “We don’t talk about it much,”  she says.  Her face has closed off and Eliot can’t read a damn thing in her eyes.  “But we’re safe here.” 

            That’s a remarkable statement to make, given that Eliot has just revealed himself as a fellow criminal, but Parker doesn’t seem to see it as such.  “Okay,”  Eliot says,  “Why don’t you talk about it?”  
            Parker’s eyes flash dangerously.  “Enough questions,”  she snaps.  Eliot falls silent, not willing to push her too much more.  He senses he’s already on thin ground and that’s not a place he likes to be, especially when that ground is inside a building he’s not familiar with.  

            “Don’t scare him.”  Hardison appears in the doorway to the living room, rubbing one eye tiredly.  “Also, why is he here?”

            “She’s a thief,”  Eliot says at the same time Parker says, “He was lurking.”

            “That’s what I do,”  Eliot snaps, folding his arms over his chest.

            Hardison rolls his eyes.  He settles in next to Parker and she immediately tucks herself in against his body.  

            “I was wondering when you’d be back,”  Hardison says.

            Eliot frowns.  He’s experienced strange nights before, but this might just take the cake.  He’s not sure how he got in this situation, to be honest, and he’s even less sure how to get out.

            Hardison points at Eliot.  “Parker is a thief.”  He agrees.  “You are not.”

            “No,”  Eliot says.

            “What are you?”  Parker asks.

            “A bad guy,”  Eliot answers.  And it’s the truth.  He’s a criminal, a killer, the sort of guy no one really wants around but who is needed in the world he inhabits.  Guys like him are scary and good for making sure things get done the way they’re supposed to.  And guys like him aren’t supposed to be able to walk away, not ever, and that’s why Eliot’s stuck here.

            Parker doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even blink at Eliot’s words.  She just nods, like she was waiting all this time to hear the confession.  Hardison looks a little more concerned, which is at least closer to the sort of reaction Eliot was expecting.

            “You’re in hiding,”  Hardison says, and it isn’t a question.  “From who?”

            “The Escamilla Cartel,”  Eliot says.  “Who are you running from?”

  
            Parker looks like she wants to tell him to stop prying - again - but Hardison answers easily enough.  “The Kozlov branch of the Russian Mob.”

            Fuck.  Eliot knows that particular branch, knows them well enough to know exactly how they like to execute their victims.  It’s not pretty.

            “Why the hell aren’t you halfway across the world?”  Eliot demands.  “Anywhere - Brazil would be a good place to go.”

            The couple exchange glances like they’ve had this argument before.  Actually, Eliot thinks they may be having another version of it right now, silently, if the raised eyebrows and glaring looks are anything to go by.

            “Our identities are all burned,”  Hardison finally says.  “There’s no way we can leave the country without them being able to track us.”  After a pause, he adds, “And we were planning on Argentina.”

            “What’d you do?”

            Parker grins.  “I stole a Faberge Egg from them,”  she says before the grin slips off her face.  “But they noticed.”

            “If the mob is after you, why were you so friendly with me?  You didn’t know who I was.”

            Hardison looks offended.  “Please.  I’ve run background checks on everyone in this town.  You were a bit of a mystery - did you know half of your files are just nothing but giant ‘REDACTED’ stickers?  But I’m good at what I do.”

            Eliot feels a little sick that someone has known so much about him for so long and he didn’t realize.  He let his guard down, somehow, and it’s going to come back to haunt him. 

            “You should have run the other way,”  he says, almost angry.  “You saw my file and decided to invite me in?”

            “You do things for money,”  Parker says.  She shifts on the couch, leaning forward so she can stare at Eliot.  “We have money.”

            And Eliot realizes he’s in over his head, with two thieves who know next to nothing about going into hiding and even less about how to deal with professionals like him.  He also realizes that he wants to help the couple, which is definitely odd.  He should leave, pack up his things and head out of town tonight.  There are other podunk towns he can hide out in, other places that won’t have the mob coming to town any day now.  And of that he’s sure - the Kozlovs won’t be long.  Parker and Hardison have stayed hidden longer than the average target, but you don’t cross that particular branch and stay alive to tell of it. 

            Fuck, fuck, fuck.  Eliot doesn’t leave.  His conscious - if the damn thing still exists - seems to be telling him to stay and protect these two.  Which is surprising, but there are other more pressing issues to deal with first.

            “Okay, first, I do things for money most of the time.  Never assume things about bad guys.”

            “You’re not a bad guy,”  Hardison says at the same time Parker says, “I never assume.”  

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”  

            “Hardison has his way of finding out information,”  Parker says.  “I have mine.” 

            Eliot stares at her for a moment before realizing what she means.  “When did you break into my house?”

            “Two days after you moved in,”  Parker says.  “Your house is kinda a mess.”

            Eliot wants to demand how she broke in, how she got past his security.  But one look at her face and the mulish set of her jaw informs him that he’s not going to get that particular question answered.  

            “I’m renovating it,”  he says instead, like he really needs to be defending his house from someone who fucking broke into it.  

            Parker shrugs.  “Cooking stuff and weapons,”  she says.  “That’s what you had.  If you were here to take us out, you wouldn’t have bothered with nice pots and pans.”

            It’s weird logic, that’s for sure, but Eliot gets what she means.  If he was being paid to track someone down and kill them, he’d have the bare essentials and that’s it.  Not - a life’s worth of stuff. 

            “Okay,”  He says.  “Okay.  So what’s the plan?”

            They both just stare at him.  “The plan?”  Hardison repeats.

            “You and I both know that the mob is going to show up sooner rather than later.  Unless you plan on moving from town to town the rest of your life - which, by the way, won’t be very long with the Kozlovs after you - you need a plan.”

            “We have a plan,”  Hardison says.  “Don’t get caught.”

            This is going to be a harder battle than Eliot thought.  “That’s not how this works,”  he growls.  “Look, I’ve worked for guys like the mob.  They don’t give up.”

            Hardison mutters something about security systems, but he at least looks a little more worried.  Parker - well, Eliot’s beginning to think Parker doesn’t show emotion the same way most people do, because she looks _bored_ by this whole conversation.

            “You want to help us,”  Parker says, and it’s a statement, not a question or a request for help.  And Eliot should correct her, but he can’t just leave these two to die some gruesome death.

            “I’ll try,”  Eliot says.  It’s the best he can promise.

 

            It’s four in the morning when Eliot lets himself into his own house.  He doesn’t feel any safer when he hears the lock click behind him.  Trouble is coming to town, and he can either wait for it or face it head on.  He just doesn’t know if he has the resources to do either.

            Eliot doesn’t have a phone - one of the many things he ditched to keep him safer while in hiding - so he does the next best thing.  He knocks on Mark and Jane’s door as soon as it’s late enough in the morning to be polite and asks to borrow their phone. 

            “Johnson,”  Eliot says.  “I need a favor.”

            And Eliot feels a little bad about doing things this way, but he figures turning in someone wanted by the Russian mob will put him in their good graces enough for the cartel to back off.  If not - well, he’ll deal with that if it comes to that.  He’s hoping it won’t.

            Parker is sitting on his front porch when Eliot comes back across the street.  She’s got her feet propped up on the railing like she lives there.  “I don’t speak Russian,”  she says by way of greeting.

            “Hello to you too.”  Eliot eyes her.  “Did you break in again?”

            “Not yet,”  Parker says, and she’s remarkably honest for a thief.  Eliot shrugs and beckons her inside.  “It looks cleaner than the last time I was here.”

            Eliot rolls his eyes.  “I finished the kitchen,”  he says.  “And I haven’t gotten a chance to move onto the dining room yet.”

            Parker frowns.  “How do you keep plants alive inside?”  she asks.  “There’s no rain.”

            “You water them,”  Eliot says, wondering how these two have managed to keep themselves alive this long.  

            “Is this plan going to work?”  Parker asks.  She’s moving from room to room across the downstairs of Eliot’s house, picking up objects and examining them before setting them back down and moving on.  Her voice drifts in from the kitchen. 

            “It’s going to work,”  Eliot says. 

            Parker wanders back into view.  She settles into one of the chairs Eliot found at the local thrift shop, an armchair badly in need of being reupholstered.  She pokes at a hole in the side a few times before finally turning her attention back on Eliot. 

            “Okay,”  she says.  “So what do I do?”  She leans over the edge of the chair and picks up a drill Eliot left there, alongside his toolbox.  Eliot has to bite back the urge to take it back from her.  He doesn’t trust her not to hurt herself or to steal it.  He’s not sure which.

            “The opposite of what you did to piss off the mob,”  Eliot says.  “The cartel will be arriving any day now.  As soon as they do, you’re up.”

            “Huh,”  Parker says.  She sets down the drill.  “I meant what I said.  I don’t speak Russian.  Do you?”

            “Yeah,”  Eliot says.  “And you don’t need to speak Russian, you just need to sound like you speak Russian.  I’ll teach you a few phrases.”

            And that’s what he does.  By the end of the afternoon, she’s got a decent enough accent to pass - at least, with anyone who isn’t Russian.  Eliot even gives her a few words to say in Russian, and she tests them out with glee.

            “Russian is a weird language,”  Parker decides.  “I like it.”

            She’s about to leave when Eliot remembers something else.  “Hang on,”  he says, and Parker trails behind him as he heads to the safe installed in his bedroom closet.  She doesn’t seem surprised to see it there, and he gets a feeling she’s broken into it before.  He’d ask, but he thinks he doesn’t actually want an answer.  

            The safe is where he keeps his weapons, the ones that he doesn’t like using but needs to have nearby just in case.  He pulls out a small gun and hands it to Parker.

            “Hang on to this.  Keep the safety on, and whatever you do, don’t let Hardison touch it.”

            Parker examines the weapon.  “Why do I need this?”

            “The cartel will pat you down.  If you don’t have a weapon, they’ll get suspicious.”

            “Huh,”  Parker says.  “Cartels are weird too.”

 

            The next few days pass with that nervous sort of energy that makes Eliot wish he could go beat someone up.  Instead, he takes a sledgehammer to the guest bathroom and destroys the damn thing, ugly orange and pink tile flying everywhere.  Hardison comes over, takes one look at Eliot, and bails.  Parker remarks that she liked the orange, and Eliot now knows who chose their house color.  

            Johnson comes through like Eliot knew he would, selling Eliot’s location to the cartel and informing the mob about the whereabouts of two thieves they’re looking for.  He can always trust Johnson to be a self-serving bastard.  It doesn’t take long for them to come to town - the cartel setting up their base in the seedy motel down by the highway and three Russian enforcers taking over one of the empty buildings off of Main Street.

            Parker’s voice drifts over comms.  “This feels wrong,”  she says.

            “You steal for a living,”  Eliot reminds her. 

            “Exactly.”  There’s a muffled click of a safe opening.  “I don’t give what I steal to other people.”

            “Just put the damn egg in the safe and get out of there,”  Eliot says, because he really doesn’t want to know what would happen if she gets caught.  

            “It’s done,”  Parker says.  She sighs.  “This is boring.  I miss laser grids and alarm systems.”

            “You miss - no, of course you do,”  Eliot says. 

            “How is the mob going to figure out that the cartel has the egg?”  Hardison asks.  He’s sitting in front of one of his computer monitors.  Eliot - sprawled in a chair nearby - bites back a sigh. 

            “Easy,”  Parker says, and Eliot isn’t sure if he wants her optimism or if it scares him.

            In the end, though, she’s right.  Although Eliot doesn’t particularly like her plan - too many variables, for one thing - he has to admit it’s going to work.  Probably.  Hopefully.

            It takes Hardison all of thirty seconds to hack into one of the cartel members’ Instagram accounts.  “This - now this is just wrong.  He’s a damn Insta-celebrity!”

            “Good,”  Parker says.  “Now post the photo.”

            “I know what I’m doing,”  Hardison grumbles.  “Give me a damn second.  There.  You happy?”

            “Yes,”  Parker says, and kisses his cheek.  “My turn!”

            The motel the cartel is camped out at has a bar attached, a seedy sort of place out by the highway that sees more bikers than it does regulars from town.  Eliot’s never actually been in it himself.  But that’s where the cartel is, so that’s where Parker’s headed. 

            They drive there in a large black van that Hardison refers to as Lucille, and that’s more than a little creepy.  But Lucille is equipped with all sorts of computers and monitors and surveillance equipment.  Eliot doesn’t put up much of a fight at having to spend the afternoon in the cramped quarters.  

            Parker follows them on her motorcycle.  They park half a mile away, hidden from view in an overgrown driveway.  Parker waves to them as she speeds by. 

            “You sure this is going to work?”  Hardison asks as he sets up.  “Girl’s a thief, not a grifter.”

            “We don’t have a better option.”  Eliot says, because he’s heard Hardison’s attempts at a Russian accent.   He sounds like a dying polar bear.  “She can do it.”

            “What - what if something happens?”

            Eliot turns to look at the other man, who’s gone pale.  “I’m ninety percent sure something won’t.  But if it does, I’ll sort it out.”  Hardison still doesn’t look convinced.  “I promise.”

            Hardison stares at Eliot for a minute, long enough that Eliot starts to get uncomfortable.  He doesn’t break eye contact though.  A bad guy he may be - and Eliot has no illusions about what he is - Eliot still doesn’t break a promise.

            “Okay,”  Hardison says finally.  “I believe you.”

            They turn their attention to the monitor showing the footage from Parker’s button cam.  She’s just pulling up in front of the bar, parking her bike next to two others.  Inside, the bar is dim, a perpetual twilight.  The whole place is filthy, with the more expensive bottles of liquor covered in a layer of dust.  It’s not exactly the sort of place you’d go for fun night out.  

            The cartel members - five strong - have claimed one of the tables.  Two locals, undoubtedly the owners of the bikes outside, sit at the bar.  Parker hesitates momentarily before turning her attention to the cartel members.

            “Stupid move,”  Parker says, and her Russian accent really isn’t that bad.  Grifter she is not, but it will work for this. 

            “Who are you?”

            “Who am I?”  Parker asks.  “Kozlov Family.  Ring a bell?”

            She’s met with blank looks by most, but there’s a flicker of fear in the cartel member on the far right.  

            “Parker, the guy on the right knows of the Kozlovs.  Talk to him.”

            The button cam focuses on the man in question as Parker turns to face him.  “It does for you.  Did you really think we wouldn’t notice?”

            “Notice what?”

            “The egg,”  Parker says, and Eliot has to grin at the utter confusion on the faces of the cartel members.  Parker pulls out her phone.  “This is your account, yes?  Explain this photo.”

            The blood drains out of the man’s face.  “That’s - I didn’t post that,”  The man stutters as his colleagues shift uneasily in their seats.  

            “It’s mine.  And, for that matter, so is Eliot Spencer,”  Parker says.  “So here’s what you’re going to do if you don’t want the entire mob coming down on you.  You’re going to give me the egg.  I know you have it with you - probably in whatever crappy safe this motel has.  Then you are going to take the price off of Spencer’s head and leave town.  Anything less, and you won’t make it out of town alive.”

            “She’s scary,”  Eliot says, and Hardison fucking beams.  “That’s not something to be proud of!”

            “My girl’s good,”  Hardison says.  “You get them, mama.”

            “I don’t have the egg,”  The man protests.  Parker snorts.

            “Then you won’t mind showing me the safe,”  she says.  When none of the men move, she yells, “Let’s go!”

            “What’s the status?”  Eliot asks Hardison.  The other man checks one of the monitors.

            “Incoming,”  he says.  “Any minute now.”

            The safe behind the motel desk is one of those things that a few whacks with a hammer would destroy.  The cartel men seem to think Parker’s about to be embarrassed, but the door swings open to reveal a glittering and very real Faberge Egg.  

            “How - how did that get there?”  one of the men asks. 

            “Well?”  Parker demands.  “Spencer is mine, yes?”  

            “I - fine,”  another man says.  “The price is off his head.”

            There’s a sudden burst of movement to the side.  Shouting.  The Kozlovs - the real ones - have arrived.  

            “Get out now, Parker.”  

            The button cam goes dark as Parker hoists herself into the air duct above the safe during the confusion.  Though they can’t see anything anymore, the comms are good enough to pick up on the fight below. 

            “Well,”  Hardison says as Parker crawls her way through the air duct.  “That actually seemed to work.”

            “Did you think it wouldn’t?”  Parker hisses.  They hear a faint clank and a muffled thump as she drops out of the air duct, safely away from the ongoing fight.  “Hold up.”

            “What?”

            Parker turns, letting them see what she does through the button cam.  And Eliot’s heart just about stops.

            “The FBI?”  he says.  “Hardison, did you call them?”

            “Nope,”  Hardison looks insulted.  “I don’t work that way.”

            “Neither do I.”

            “Maybe they saw the post on Instagram,”  Parker offers. 

            Eliot pinches his nose and tries not to freak out.  “Okay, just get out -”  He trails off as one of the FBI agents turns.  “Jane?”

            “You know her?”

            “She’s my neighbor,”  Eliot says.  “What the fuck is going on?”

            “FBI, we have the building surrounded!”  An agent yells through a loudspeaker.  “Come out with your hands up.”

            They all wait with bated breath.  The Russians are the first to emerge, hands high above their heads.  The cartel follows.  No sooner have they exited the building than they are wrestled to the ground and handcuffed.  Eliot watches the monitor in shock as Jane leads a team inside. 

            “We - we need to get out of the area,”  He says.  “Parker, get out now.”

            He’s still utterly confused a half hour later, sitting in Hardison’s and Parker’s backyard and mulling over what happened.  Everything had worked to plan - and moreso.  The FBI showing up couldn’t have been a coincidence.  And, he has to admit, it wrapped things up nicely.  They don’t have to worry about the mob anymore, not with the FBI involved.  Hardison is speeding up their investigation by making sure they find some incriminating evidence of money laundering on the enforcers’ computers.  The whole branch will be destroyed in a matter of days.

            Still, seeing Jane with her FBI jacket has him baffled.  

            “There’s nothing?”  he asks Hardison for the hundredth time.  

            “Nothing,”  Hardison confirms.  “Jane and her husband bought that house six years ago.  They’re supposedly retired.  Are you sure it was her?”

            And, well, Eliot’s not so sure anymore.  Because it wouldn’t make sense, would it?  “I don’t know, man,”  He says.  “I thought it was.”

            Parker is sitting on the dead grass and pouting.  “I don’t see why I couldn’t take the egg,”  She says.  “It’s sparkly.”

            “There’s no way of getting it now,”  Hardison says.  “Not with the FBI surrounding the place.”

            It becomes clear, over the next few days, that things have settled down for all of them.  They don’t have to stay here in the middle of nowhere any longer.  And, as glad as Eliot is to be leaving, he realizes he’s actually going to miss this damn place.  

            Parker and Hardison are the first to leave, putting the house up for sale and taking down all of the weird thief and hacker equipment they’ve installed.  On the day they leave - Lucille packed to the brim with their stuff - Eliot stops by.

            “Don’t be strangers,”  he says, because he’s almost fond of the pair.

            “Same to you,”  Hardison says, shaking Eliot’s hand.  

            Parker grins.  “We should pull a job together sometime,”  She says.  “Look us up.”

            “I will,”  Eliot says, and it’s another promise.

            Parker and Hardison don’t have an attachment to this town, but Eliot does.  He waves them off and considers what he’s going to do next.  He’s bored.  He wants to work again, but maybe now not doing jobs that are quite so - violent.  Maybe he should get back to retrieval work. 

            He doesn’t put a for sale sign on his front yard.  He cleans up inside and makes a promise that he’ll come back here occasionally to keep working on the place.  In the meantime, he entrusts the property to Mark and Jane.

            “Traveling for work.”  He explains.  The couple is sipping wine on their front porch, enjoying the late afternoon sun.  Eliot still isn’t sure if it was Jane or not that he saw, but it doesn’t really matter.  “I’ll be around, though.”

            “You take care,”  Jane says, waving.  And, Eliot thinks, there’s no way it was Jane he saw.  

            “Bye, now,”  Mark adds. 

            Eliot drives out of town, his pickup truck just as empty as it was when he arrived.  He’s not exactly fond of having to go into hiding.  But this time - this time wasn’t so bad.

 

====================================================================

 

            Sophie clinks her glass against Nate’s.  “Cheers,”  she says.  “Retirement agrees with us.”

            Nate laughs.  “I don’t think you can call it retirement if we’re still pulling jobs,”  he says.  Inside, sitting on the mantle, a certain sparkly egg glitters in the afternoon sun.

            Sophie shrugs.  “It was just a little one,”  she says.  “We’re back to retired now.”

 


	2. Art by Spacefoxen




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